Saint-Delis – Blossoming Tree

Henri Liénard de Saint-Delis
(1878 Hesdin – 1949 Honfleur)

BLOSSOMING TREE

Painted in 1902

Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right: H. de S. Delis 1902

Henri de Saint-Delis had been friends with Othon Friesz since school and, since his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre, with Raoul Dufy, George Braque and Johan Barthold Jongkind, who were Normans like him. He followed Dufy to Paris for a year and became acquainted with Impressionism and Fauvism, but had to cut short his stay when he contracted tuberculosis in 1905. He spent several years in Switzerland recovering. In 1920, he returned to Normandy and settled in Honfleur. His Norman works, mainly coastal landscapes and harbour scenes, are characterised by strong colours and sketchy drawings and are stylistically close to Fauvism. As he lived a very secluded life and rarely exhibited his work, the public only became aware of his extensive and interesting oeuvre in 1954 on the occasion of a retrospective at the Galerie André Weil in Paris.

The loosely and confidently painted ‘Blossoming Tree’ is very much in the tradition of Impressionism, but is very colourful. One senses the influence of Friesz, Dufy and Braque, who approached Matisse and Fauvism from 1903 onwards. A great picture!